The Genesis and General Meaning of Blake's "Milton"

Abstract

Blake's Milton, like all his long mystical poems, is full of obscurities, many of which have not yet been made clear. But the central thread of the narrative is reasonably distinct. Milton in heaven, about the year 1804, hears a bard's song dealing, in a very unintelligible way, with the attempt of evil to usurp power over good. Inspired by this song, which is of considerable length, the spirit of Milton returns to the world to teach men the true gospel about art and ethics, a gospel that does not wholly agree with what the world had supposed that he had taught in his writings while alive. To some extent at least he makes Blake his mouthpiece, or lets his Elijah mantle fall upon this fiery Elisha. Aside from numerous debatable interpretations of detail, there are some decidedly vexed questions about the meaning of the principal themes. How is the long, confusing song of the bard to be unriddled? What is there in it which would make Milton feel compelled to revisit earth? What was Blake's attitude toward Milton the man, and toward the teachings, as he understood them, of Milton's published works, etc.? As all of these problems connect with Blake's conception of Milton, it might be well to ask how much the living poet knew about the dead one at the time of composition, and from what sources Blake drew his ideas. Milton was apparently begun in 1804 and finished around 1808. From 1800 to 1803 Blake had been the prot6g6 and close companion of William Hayley. Whatever his feelings toward Hayley may have become eventually, there must have been a time when relations were pleasant; and nothing would be more natural than that Blake should read books written or owned by his patron, or take suggestions from accounts of what Hayley had read. Now at that time Hayley was posing as a Milton scholar. Under the inspiration derived from Cowper, he was at work on an edition of [MODERN PHILOLOGY, November, 19271 165